survivor stories
“We understand that crash survivors have stories they want to share and we are pleased to provide a platform.”
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Crash Survivor Finds Healing in Poetry
Poetry For Healing: Making Sense of a New World May 22nd, 2020 was not a typical day. I was starting work late due to a routine doctors appointment and a post-op pet rabbit. I would end it in a hospital bed, with strict instructions not to move in case I...
Crash Survivor Creates Sandal Blue Foundation
We’d finally made it. After 16 years of marriage, 5 kids in 6 years (including 2 sets of twins), health challenges galore, financial hardship… life. For the first time we finally felt like things were at that ‘point’ that we’d always wanted to get to. During COVID...
Finding Sacredness of Life After Surviving a Catastrophic Crash
The way I move through my days now is so incredibly different and yes there is the sacredness and how I love the sacredness of my life now post-accident. My innate ability to appreciate life’s little moments is the epitome of what I would call sacred. But it...
Crash Survivor Compares Dealing with Insurance to Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse
I survived a Zombie apocalypse. I used to be such a good little zombie. My car accident happened in 2014 right when my career as a nurse was going full tilt and my husband and I were launching our kids. All of a sudden, I found myself waking up in a seeming...
How Grief Led A Victim to Become The Unintended Activist
On February 22, 2016, a routine afternoon my beloved husband, father and high school math and science teacher, Tim O’Donnell as well as our 5-year-old daughter Bridget, lost their lives in a horrific car crash caused by a habitual drugged driver. My now...
Catastrophic Crash Survivor – Can I Ask You a Question?
Catastrophic Crash Survivor - Who Are You? I was wrong. Most of you do not know me personally. If you did, that first sentence would be jarring. Wrong is not something I admit often – or at least often enough. It was early in my recovery; I was speaking to a...
Woman Creates Caregiver Support Group to Help Herself and Others
On August 15, 2011, Greg and I, along with our friend Jimmy, were riding our Harley Davidsons along the scenic section of highway 95, about 60 miles south of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Greg was feeling sick, probably from food poisoning contracted at a diner the...
Moving on From Traumatic Brain Injury – A Catastrophic Journey
Brain Injury is a Catastrophic Journey And the Piper advanced and the children followed, And when all were in to the very last, The door in the mountainside shut fast. Did I say all? No! One was lame and could not dance the whole of the way; And in after years, if you...
A Decade of Healing From a Life Changing Crash
Last month, I celebrated my Crashiversary. It was a big one. 10 years ago I was driving alone when my life decided to come to an unexpected halt by no fault of my own. I was doing everything right that morning but sadly, the other driver was not. Rear ended at a...
Catastrophic Motorcycle Crash Survivor Will Always Be a Writer
Am I a Writer? Who am I? Lately, I’ve been thinking about resiliency. What it means. What it means to me. What makes one person resilient and another less-so. As I thought about this, and other things found down the rabbit hole, I stumbled across my...
Woman Creates Podcast After Near Fatal Crash
With this type of injury, you're looking at nine to twelve months of recovery.” I heard the words coming from the mouth of the attending surgeon at Roanoke Memorial Hospital but it didn't register completely. “Sure, Doc I'm ready, but can you save the...
Life-Changing Crash Leaves Man Full of Love
Who knew how little control we really have of our lives? I had so many plans for myself as a young 25 year old. I was working on my master’s degree in computer science and planning to work overseas in Asia. I loved to travel and learn about other...
Kevin Rempel Went From Paralysis to the Paralympics and Podium
We are so pleased to introduce you to Kevin Rempel who has an incredible story of overcoming a tremendous amount of adversity. In 2002 his father Gerry fell from a tree while deer hunting leaving him a complete paraplegic one year from retirement. Four years later...
Acceptance and Finding Purpose After a Traumatic Accident
When the doctors told me after my accident that it would take a long time to heal, I never imagined that 18 months later I would still be on my recovery journey. But those 18 months, however frustrating and tough, haven't been wasted time. They helped me...
Crash Survivor’s Wife Shares Three Things Crucial to Recovery
Thick, black smoke obscured a semi one inky night in July of 2012. A truck with mechanical problems crawled on the freeway. Neither my husband Derek nor his boss, the driver, saw the truck before drilling into the back of it. Nearly every bone in Derek’s face and eye...
Don’t Drive Distracted – i Pinky Swear Campaign Led by Crash Survivor
I Pinky Swear They say your life can change in the blink of an eye…. I never really understood the true meaning of this statement until I was hit by a distracted driver 6 years ago. Looking back at the person I was, the things I could do, the plans I had for my...
Waterfalls – Guest Blogger Shares Power of Music
Cinderella Man Back in the hospital, this time I am being visited by a doctor. He's a good-looking doctor. Too good-looking. Tv-doctor good looking, soap-opera-fake-doctor good looking. I listen as he shares news about my arms. In response I say, “14 seems like a lot...
You’re Getting Better Every Day
Sarah sustained a severe traumatic brain injury at the age of 15 after getting in a car with an underage drinking driver and is the author of the book, "You're Getting Better Every Day." Her writings have been published in Hope magazine and ADDitude Magazine....
Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor Stays Positive
On 8/23/2008, I was a passenger in a serious one-vehicle rollover accident that resulted in a severe traumatic brain injury. The driver was drunk, 6 people packed into a single cab truck (4 in front and 2 in the bed), and a story that was rumored was that we...
Guest Blogger – The ‘Catastrophe’ Was Not the Fault of the Motorcycle
It was a cold, rainy night, at least it sounded of rain. I was trapped, laying on my back in a box car of a train. Pinned down on my back, unable to get up. I couldn't see the restraints, like a turtle on its back - straining but never getting up. There were breaks in...
How a Millennial Car Crash Survivor Turned Her Suffering Over to God
Have you ever asked how a good God could let bad things happen? Where is God in the midst of suffering? Is there any hope left for me? One moment Caitie Crowley was an ordinary 24-year-old driving home from work, and then next moment her life would be changed forever....
Crash Survivor Often Wonders How Things Could Have Been Different
Life-changing crash leaves survivor wondering if she could have had a normal life. September 29, 2018 started out as an ordinary day, but ended in a tragedy of twisted metal and pain. I met my boyfriend a few months earlier so the relationship was new; still in...
Motorcycle Crash Survivor, Andrew Lawlor Shares His Recovery Journey as a Guest Blogger
This Life Husband, father, writer… infrequent and at least 55% impaired. Impaired as in injured, damaged, diminished, less than whole. Please be patient, I’m still getting used to my new brain. I have no answers, no advice, no guidance. All I have is a...
Grief Empowers Attorney to Understand his Clients
On August 7, 2008, a woman passed out at the wheel of an SUV. She crossed the center line, and struck a minivan driven by a 17-year-old girl. The woman had two prior impaired driving convictions. She was drunk and her blood tested positive for the presence of...